Comparison · Small business
AI marketing tools for small business
Picked for businesses with no marketing team and no time to run experiments.
- 7 tools
- $0-60 a month
- Time saved per week
AI marketing tools for small business: which one should you pick?
A small business needs three AI tools, not a stack: a general model for drafting and research at about $20 a month, the AI features already included in your email platform, and one tool that reads real data rather than guessing. Total realistic spend is $0-60 a month, and the free tiers cover most businesses under 5,000 contacts.
Last updated 3 August 2026
| Tool | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Drafting anything: emails, listings, replies, ad copy | Free tier, or about $20 a month for Plus |
| gtm.help | Knowing which marketing job to do next | Free plan, paid from $39 a month |
| Google Business Profile (with AI replies) | Any business with a physical location or local service area | Free |
| Mailchimp or Brevo AI features | Newsletters and customer follow-up | Free to about 500-1,000 contacts, then from roughly $13-25 a month |
| Canva Magic Studio | Graphics, social posts and print without a designer | Free tier, Pro about $15 a month |
| Descript | Businesses that can film 60 seconds on a phone | Free tier, paid from about $19 a month |
| Perplexity | Checking a claim or researching a competitor before you commit money | Free tier, Pro about $20 a month |
Small business AI tool lists usually assume you have a marketing person to run them. Most don't. The owner does marketing between everything else, in whatever hour is left, which changes what a good tool looks like: it has to produce something usable in one sitting, with no setup project and no ongoing management.
That rules out most of the category. What survives is a short list of tools that either save an hour a week straight away or stop you making an expensive decision badly.
One warning before the list. AI makes producing marketing much cheaper, which mostly means small businesses now produce more of the wrong marketing faster. Decide what you are trying to do before you decide what to buy it with.
How we judged them
What matters when you're small.
Usable in the first sitting
If a tool needs a two-hour setup or an onboarding call before it produces anything, it will sit unopened. Anything requiring configuration you cannot finish in twenty minutes is the wrong shape for a business with no marketing team.
Saves a task you actually do weekly
Score each tool against a real recurring job: writing the newsletter, replying to reviews, posting to social, chasing quotes. A tool that improves something you do twice a year saves nothing.
Free tier that is genuinely usable
Under about 5,000 contacts and 20 pieces of content a month, free tiers cover almost everything. Prove the habit exists before you attach a card.
No lock-in on your customer data
Check you can export contacts and history in CSV before importing them. Small businesses change tools more often than they expect, usually when prices rise at a renewal.
The picks
What each one is actually good at.
ChatGPT
Free tier, or about $20 a month for PlusBest for: Drafting anything: emails, listings, replies, ad copy
The single highest-value subscription for a small business, and the free tier is enough for most. Save one project with your business description, tone and best previous work so you are not re-explaining yourself weekly. Saves 2-3 hours a week for most owners.
gtm.help
Free plan, paid from $39 a monthBest for: Knowing which marketing job to do next
Ours. It reads your website, then gives 10 ranked plays sized to your budget and time, unlocking another each time you finish one. Built for the specific problem of not knowing what to do next rather than not knowing how to write it.
Google Business Profile (with AI replies)
FreeBest for: Any business with a physical location or local service area
Free, and still the highest-return marketing channel for most local businesses. The suggested review replies and post drafts remove the excuse for leaving reviews unanswered. Answer every review within 48 hours and this alone outperforms most paid tools.
Mailchimp or Brevo AI features
Free to about 500-1,000 contacts, then from roughly $13-25 a monthBest for: Newsletters and customer follow-up
Subject-line suggestions, send-time optimisation and content generation are included rather than sold separately. Before you buy any standalone AI email tool, check what is already sitting in your existing account.
Canva Magic Studio
Free tier, Pro about $15 a monthBest for: Graphics, social posts and print without a designer
Background removal, resizing across formats and text-to-image in one place. The Pro tier pays for itself the first time you avoid a $150 design job. Templates are widely used, so change the fonts and colours or your posts look like everyone else's.
Descript
Free tier, paid from about $19 a monthBest for: Businesses that can film 60 seconds on a phone
Edit video by editing the transcript, auto-caption, and cut filler words. For a trade, clinic or restaurant, one honest phone video a week outperforms a month of written posts, and this removes the editing barrier.
Perplexity
Free tier, Pro about $20 a monthBest for: Checking a claim or researching a competitor before you commit money
Every answer comes with sources you can open. Use it before signing a supplier, entering a market or copying a competitor's pricing, because a general chat model will answer those questions confidently and sometimes wrongly.
Skip
What we'd leave alone.
- An AI chatbot on a site with under 500 visitors a month. You will get two conversations a week and they would both have emailed you anyway.
- A full CRM before you have 100 customers. A spreadsheet with a follow-up date column loses nothing and takes ten minutes to set up.
- Automated AI posting to every social platform at once. Posting where your customers are not is not cheaper because a machine did it.
- Annual plans in month one. This category re-prices and ships new features constantly; monthly costs slightly more and keeps you free to switch.
Questions
Common questions.
What is the cheapest useful AI marketing setup for a small business?
Free ChatGPT, the AI features in your existing email tool, and a fully filled-in Google Business Profile. That is $0 a month and covers drafting, customer follow-up and local visibility, which is most of small business marketing.
How much time does AI actually save a small business owner?
Realistically two to four hours a week, mostly on drafting emails, social posts, product descriptions and review replies. It saves almost no time on the parts that matter most: talking to customers and deciding what to sell.
Should a small business use AI to write its website copy?
Use it for the first draft and the structure, then rewrite the parts that describe what makes you different. Those sentences are the reason someone buys, and a model that has never met your customers cannot write them.
Do I need a marketing person if I use AI tools?
AI covers execution. It does not cover deciding which customers to chase, which is the decision that determines whether the execution matters. Most small businesses need a few hours of good advice more than they need another subscription.
Is it safe to put customer data into AI tools?
Do not paste customer names, contact details or payment information into a general chat model. Use anonymised examples, and keep real customer data inside tools with a data-processing agreement, like your email platform or CRM.
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